Buddhist shot dead in troubled Thai south
YALA, Thailand, Sept 9 (Reuters) - Suspected separatist insurgents shot dead a Buddhist defence volunteer and set fire to his body, the latest in an upsurge of violence in Thailand's restive deep south, police said on Wednesday.
The attack took place in Pattani and came just hours after suspected rebels riding motorcycles hurled a home-made bomb at a restaurant in the same province, wounding five people.
A Muslim teacher was killed nearby in a drive-by shooting a day earlier, which police said was the work of insurgents seeking to deter local ethnic Malay Muslims from working for the Thai state.
Nearly 3,500 people have been killed in five years of unrest in Muslim-dominated Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat provinces bordering Malaysia, a region annexed by Buddhist Thailand a century ago as part of a treaty with Britain.
No credible group has claimed responsibility for the violence, which the 30,000 troops stationed in the rubber-rich region have failed to curtail. (For a Q+A on Thailand's southern insurgency click on [ID:nBKK485664] and for a related feature [ID:nBKK154617]) (Reporting by Surapan Boonthanom; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Nick Macfie)
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